There Should Be Some Help
by Bob1097
Summary: I was the little pink speck of pill lying in Janie's hand. She had always been nice to me, she understood the way a brain like mine worked, and she said this would make me understand too. Eyes were looking at me laying there in her palm, my eyes, but they couldn't be mine. I was in her hand and LSD doesn't have eyes, does it? This is Pony's first trip on LSD, he won't be the same.


**A/N: I personally have never done LSD, so I don't know exactly what it is like. However I have done some reading on the subject, and think it is the most interesting of drugs.**

**This is a fill in the blank from Brown Eyed Girl, but it makes perfect sense without it.**

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I was the little pink speck of pill lying in Janie's hand. She had always been nice to me, she understood the way a brain like mine worked, and she said this would make me understand too. Eyes were looking at me laying there in her palm, my eyes, but they couldn't be mine. I was in her hand and LSD doesn't have eyes, does it? Then my own scrawny fingers were wrapped around me and dropping me into a wet dark cave; that was my mouth. Then a sudden lunge and jerk like a raft on rapids and I was going down my throat. Almost simultaneously I was just a shooting pink streak and I was buzzing around my insides, all the time going up until I was in my own head. I could see things, pictures and hear voices, like a lot of little color TV's. I was real familiar with some of it, the gang, mom and dad, Darry and Sodapop, my teachers, but some of it was vague, like maybe people I had saw in the hallway, or at the DX or the boys and girls who rode their horses past us in Windrixville. I tried to focus on one, it was mom. The little movie was drifting in and out and getting blurry and clear again. She was standing at the sink saying dad's name but that was really all I could tell, so I tried to focus on another one.

I saw a very clear and close one of Steve; he was chasing Soda around our front yard with a rubber band. He was laughing so hard he could barely run, the sun was shining and it looked like a pleasant spring day, but I couldn't remember that ever happening but I was sure it had at some point. He looked much nicer than usual. But I didn't want to know about Steve so I pushed the moving picture away. Then I saw one of Darry. He didn't look any different than the last time I saw him, he looked older than he was and too stressed out. He was standing on the front porch with his hands on the railing and looking unseeingly around at the yard and the street. In this picture it looked like a nasty, gray, misty, fall day. He looked sad. I grabbed onto the picture and pulled it closer. I was so close I could feel cool, damp, wind hitting my face, and hear the leaves being blown about. I heard the screen door screech open and looked up to see Soda coming out of the house looking as sad and stressed as Darry before the door slammed shut behind him.

"It's ok Darry. They'll be back tomorrow and eat us outta house and home, you'll see." Soda said and faked a smile and slapped Darry on the shoulder. I know my brother well enough to know when he's faking a smile; he's not a good liar either.

I saw Darry turn to look at him, but what happen next was the weirdest. I felt exactly what Darry was feeling, and I knew it was what Darry was feeling and not me, because the only thing I was feeling was curiosity. It was strange inside Darry. Everything was tense and I felt like every muscle was tightening up to make me stand straight, even though I could still see he was slouched over the rail. I don't know how I could be seeing him if I was inside him, but I think it was because I was still the little pink streak inside my head.

"Oh yea? Who told you that? A little birdy?" He said, but I could feel him get angrier at Soda for lying, and want to grin at the amusement of Soda's optimism. Darry sure felt things weird.

"No, Lose told me. Man that girl huh? She a firecracker, but she really believes it."

I felt Darry's muscles grow tighter and relax at the same time as he twisted his hands anxiously around the rail.

"Listen Soda, I'm real sorry about what happened the other night. You know I didn't mean to hit him like that, it's just, well ya know, sometimes you two can be a lot for one guy to handle. Especially seein' as I want ya'll to do well in life. It wouldn't be nearly so hard if I just didn't care."

Darry really did feel heart broke. My chest hurt. Or rather, Darry's did, I just felt it. He felt so sad and low, like he was an inch tall. I wanted to get out of him so I could stand on the porch with them and tell him that it was ok, and I had figured out that he didn't mean it, and I was sorry. But no matter how hard I shook the picture, and screamed at him, he wouldn't see me.

I turned back into the pink streak and shot around my head a few times so fast that all the pictures looked like a blur. But I wasn't done being curious yet.

I slowed down enough to look at the pictures as I went by. I saw one of Tim Shepard. He was alone sitting looking strange on a cot with a thin mattress and gray walls and bars around him. He was in jail. I wanted to know what Tim thought about while he was in jail so I stopped and pulled the picture to me. I concentrated real hard for a second and I was behind Tim's eyes. He was thinking about his brother, Curly. I kept seeing his face float in front on Tim's eyes. He was imagining Curly in a jail cell, the same way he was right now. He felt guilty, and sad. Then Tim thought of Dally, it was weird to feel that much about Dallas. I had never realized just how much Tim cared about him before, but now it was so obvious. I felt the strong urge to take Dally by the hand and guide him down a different path, but I knew it wouldn't work, because he was the same as me. I was Tim, and there was nothing I could do so save either one of them or me. We didn't want to be saved, we were exactly what we were supposed to be in life, and even if we had wanted to be better, trying would have been pointless. The me inside of the Tim wanted to jump up and cry out like a wild man and punch the wall as hard as I could. But Tim knew that would be completely pointless and only make him look weak. I felt Tim's face slip back into a mask and tense up. I couldn't take the feeling of being trapped and hopeless so I zoomed out of the picture and into my head again.

The next picture I saw was Soda. He was sitting on our bed with his knees pulled up, just staring blankly at nothing in particular. I figured the best way to get out of the depressed funk Tim left me in was to get inside Soda, he was always happy and he understood everything. Maybe it would help me understand too.

I thought Soda's head would be the most comfortable for me. But inside it was a jumbled mess. He had so many pictures buzzing around so face I could only catch glimpses, and quick pangs of emotion when I saw a picture. Darry; I felt sorry and of no help. Sandy; I had the worst case of butterflies I ever gotten, I also felt bad and guilty and lonely. I saw may face; I felt frustrated, like I just wanted to grab me and say, "Look man, you have to stop living in your head, see things the way they really are. Smile more Ponyboy life isn't so bad." Steve's face, I wanted to reach out and hug him and tell him his dad had always been wrong about him, and say thanks for him always being there for me. I saw the DX station, and I felt dread, I don't want to be there forever, I want to be better that a gas pumper. I saw a red "F" on a sheet of homework with the word, 'Spelling' underlined, and I felt dumb and angry with myself for being that way. I saw Mickie Mouse and felt lonely. I saw mom and dad…. I didn't know if it was me or Soda feeling that, so I got out of Soda's head as fast as I could.

After I did I felt like I had hit a brick wall and lost all my wind. I knew it was me feeling it that time though. I felt bad for Soda, I always knew he saw things differently and felt too much, but I didn't know how he could see such awful things in his head, and still love life so much, but yea I did. He was Sodapop.

A realization hit me, the real me. I couldn't go back home and see Soda, or Darry, or Tim, or any of the rest and look at them the same way when I knew their secrets. It hurt, like a knife in my heart. Things could never be the same after this.

I felt like I was being drug backwards, until I was in the top corner of my bedroom looking down on myself reading that letter Johnny had wrote when he thought he was going to die. I remember I was trying to think of how I would have felt if he and Dally had died. How much different I would have been without them. I remembered after I had read the letter I was thinking 'There should be some help'. 'There should be some help' I heard it in my own voice, loud inside my hade, echoing.

Then I was being pulled backwards again, and I was sitting in the passenger seat of Lucy's car on the way to school.

"That's what you should do, Pony." She was saying.

I didn't know what conversation we were having right then. I rode to school with her a lot while Johnny was in the hospital.

"Write it all down. Help people."

I remembered. I had just told her I thought there should be some help, someone should stop the hate. Someone had to. She was right I could do it. 'There should be some help', I heard again. Somebody has to save all the Tim Shepard's and Dallas Winston's in the world, and tell all the Darry's and Soda's, that they are appreciated. I knew what I had to do. I had to help them, I had to tell the whole story so everyone would know, and people could quit judging other people by their hair, and the brand of clothes they wore. There had to be some help, and I could help them.

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**Thanks for reading, hope you liked it.**


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